1658 books read over 90 years, a grandmother kept a record of every book she read, list goes viral on Twitter
The woman migrated to Australia, kept a record of every book she read since she was 14
Are some people just born voracious readers, or is it a habit that is learnt by discipline? Voracious readers are not 'born'. They are made. Reading is a habit that anyone can learn if they have the interest and the right amount of motivation.
Recently, a man shared his grandmother's lifelong list of every book she's read since the age of 14. Taking to Twitter, Ben Myers, who goes by the handle @_BenMyers_ shared a picture of the list of books his grandmother seemed to print on a typewriter.
Myers, the director at Alphacrucis University College in Australia, shared the whole list of books on Twitter.
"My 94-year-old grandmother has kept a list of every book she ever read since she was 14 years old. Amazing archive of one person's mind over nearly a century," wrote Myers with a picture of the reading list.
Further, he revealed more pages from the list. He also added that his grandmother hadn't finished schooling but had read 1658 books.
According to the news sources, the woman was a refugee in Germany and then migrated to Australia. She has been meticulously documenting every book she's read since she was 14, which Myers described as an, "…amazing archive of one person's mind over nearly a century".
Sharing more photos of the journal, Myers wrote, "Thanks for all the interest in my grandmother's reading! Here are a few more pages from this early period when she was a refugee in Germany, followed by her migration to Australia."
Interestingly, the list begins with books from 1943 and is mainly composed of German literature. The thread also included an English list documenting the books she read while serving as a refugee in Germany before migrating to Australia.
Myers further disclosed, "The total number of books listed is 1658 (nearly one per fortnight over 80 years). Not bad for a person who never had the opportunity to finish school. In a different world, she would have studied philosophy at university."
Seeing the list of books she read, social media users couldn't control their excitement. The users flocked to post their comments.
A Twitter user @Adeline_Mz commented on the post: "Absolutely love this thread! Did she read in other languages too, besides German and English?"
"Serbian books on very rare occasions, possibly some Hungarian ones too (I haven't looked carefully yet, I only got the list from her yesterday)," replied Myers.
Another user, @mxnotarobot, wrote: "You should train a chat GPT model on this and see if it has similar opinions to your grandma. It could be interesting to study how media helps form the subconscious and our thought patterns over time."
A Twitterati who goes by the handle @NickDThomson commented: "Dude, your grandmother is awesome! What a rich piece of history. I miss my Nanna - the only woman to love me no matter what I did wrong. My biggest fan!”
Since being shared, the post has gathered over 79.3K likes and 4.4 million views.